Operation Market Garden: A Glorious Sight, A Missed Mark

"The glittering triumph of the D-Day landings in France had become bogged down in the slow and costly progress through the Normandy fields and hedgerows which the Germans defended with such skill and tenacity." (http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/worldwars/wwtwo/battle_arnhem_01.shtml)

http://rarehistoricalphotos.com/soviet-flag-reichstag-berlin-1945/

It was a Russian soldier who hoisted the flag over the German Reichstag in the closing stages of the Second World War.  It just as easily could have been a British or an American or even a Canadian soldier, had Operation Market Garden been a success.  The British and Americans would have reached Berlin weeks before the Russians and the war would likely have ended around Christmas of 1944.  Here is a look at the bold operation which could have won the Allies the war.

Hatched by General Bernard Montgomery, the head of the British forces in Europe, Operation Market Garden involved 32,000 British and American troops penetrating deep behind enemy lines to capture the canals and rivers on the Dutch-German border.  After a successful D-Day invasion at Normandy, the Allied troops, under heavy fighting, slowly made their way across France.

Montgomery, at left, plans Operation Market Garden courtesy 

http://www.iwm.org.uk/history/the-story-of-operation-market-garden-in-photos.

"The glittering triumph of the D-Day landings in France had become bogged down in the slow and costly progress through the Normandy fields and hedgerows which the Germans defended with such skill and tenacity."  (http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/worldwars/wwtwo/battle_arnhem_01.shtml)

The Allied Army advances to the Dutch/German border (July to September 1944) courtesy http://www.warfaremagazine.co.uk/articles/Operation-Market-Garden-17-September-1944/124.

However, it was at this point that the German resistance stiffened.  Troops that were in reserve since D-Day waited for the green light, only to have their operation cancelled more than once.  Finally, it appeared like it was time to advance.  The plan was to make a thrust deep into the German lines.  Parachutes and gliders were to land at Eindhoven, Nijmegen and Arhem.  General Browning was given some alarming information:  two Panzer divisions were tucked underneath the woods near their landing site.  Operation Market Garden went ahead as planned.

British Paratroopers on their way to Arnhem con September 17, 1944 courtesy http://www.iwm.org.uk/history/the-story-of-operation-market-garden-in-photos.

The day dawned with a cloudless blue sky and a warm autumn sun.  An armada of planes, twenty abreast, flew across Holland's flat terrain like an "airborne carpet".  It was a glorious sight:  paratroopers dotted the sky.  Reality hit however when they landed.  Tanks hit the leading nine vehicles of the Allied advance.  Their radios didn't work making communication impossible.  Most of the bridges that they wished to capture were blown up before they arrived.  The final bridge at Arnhem proved the most difficult.

http://militaryhistory.about.com/od/worldwarii/a/marketgarden.htm

"The Bullets hitting the water looked like a hailstorm, kicking up little spouts of water.  When we reached about the halfway point, then the mortar and artillery fire started falling.  And when a boat was hit with an artillery or a mortar shell, it just disintegrated and everybody was lost." (http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/worldwars/wwtwo/battle_arnhem_01.shtml)

The German tanks were "devastatingly accurate".  The Allies abandonned their positions near the bridge and tried to fight their way out.  The Parachute Divison lost 1500 men to death and another 6500 were captured, many of the prisoners wounded.  It would be another four months before the Allies would cross the Rhine again.

Brigde at Nigmegen courtesy http://www.historytrips.eu/operation_market_garden.html.

Note:  This post is dedicated to Mr. Lyle Sherman, the grandfather of my sister-in-law, Julie Tufts, one of the thousands of American soldiers who fought bravely in Operation Market Garden.

D-Day Prayer

My former pastor once pointed out that on D-Day, President Roosevelt asked employers if they would give their employees the day off to pray for the troops.  Although the weather was questionable for an invasion on the Normandy beaches that day, although the Germans had panzer tanks ready, although the odds were stacked against them, the Allies went ahead with the invasion.  My pastor believes that it was prayer which gave them a much needed edge.  The weather co-operated.  Hitler's two top men were out of the country at the time and Hitler was still in bed with orders not to be disturbed.  Therefore the Allies were able to launch a surprise attack which was successful.  Here is the radio address that President Roosevelt delivered that fateful day.

My Fellow Americans:

Last night, when I spoke with you about the fall of Rome, I knew at that moment that troops of the United States and our Allies were crossing the Channel in another and greater operation. It has come to pass with success thus far.
And so, in this poignant hour, I ask you to join with me in prayer:
Almighty God: Our sons, pride of our nation, this day have set upon a mighty endeavor, a struggle to preserve our Republic, our religion, and our civilization, and to set free a suffering humanity.
Lead them straight and true; give strength to their arms, stoutness to their hearts, steadfastness in their faith.
They will need Thy blessings. Their road will be long and hard. For the enemy is strong. He may hurl back our forces. Success may not come with rushing speed, but we shall return again and again; and we know that by Thy grace, and by the righteousness of our cause, our sons will triumph.
They will be sore tried, by night and by day, without rest -- until the victory is won. The darkness will be rent by noise and flame. Men's souls will be shaken with the violences of war.
For these men are lately drawn from the ways of peace. They fight not for the lust of conquest. They fight to end conquest. They fight to liberate. They fight to let justice arise, and tolerance and goodwill among all Thy people. They yearn but for the end of battle, for their return to the haven of home.
Some will never return. Embrace these, Father, and receive them, Thy heroic servants, into Thy kingdom.
And for us at home -- fathers, mothers, children, wives, sisters, and brothers of brave men overseas, whose thoughts and prayers are ever with them -- help us, Almighty God, to rededicate ourselves in renewed faith in Thee in this hour of great sacrifice.
Many people have urged that I call the nation into a single day of special prayer (my italics).  But because the road is long and the desire is great, I ask that our people devote themselves in a continuance of prayer. As we rise to each new day, and again when each day is spent, let words of prayer be on our lips, invoking Thy help to our efforts.
Give us strength, too -- strength in our daily tasks, to redouble the contributions we make in the physical and the material support of our armed forces.
And let our hearts be stout, to wait out the long travail, to bear sorrows that may come, to impart our courage unto our sons wheresoever they may be.
And, O Lord, give us faith. Give us faith in Thee; faith in our sons; faith in each other; faith in our united crusade. Let not the keeness of our spirit ever be dulled. Let not the impacts of temporary events, of temporal matters of but fleeting moment -- let not these deter us in our unconquerable purpose.
With Thy blessing, we shall prevail over the unholy forces of our enemy. Help us to conquer the apostles of greed and racial arrogances. Lead us to the saving of our country, and with our sister nations into a world unity that will spell a sure peace -- a peace invulnerable to the schemings of unworthy men. And a peace that will let all of men live in freedom, reaping the just rewards of their honest toil.
Thy will be done, Almighty God.
Amen.

President Franklin D. Roosevelt - June 6, 1944

Photo of President Roosevelt reading D-Day prayer courtesy http://1.bp.blogspot.com.

The Berlin Airlift: American Might At Its Finest

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berlin_Blockade

"A plane flew over our town every minute or two.  It was American might at its finest." 

(my husband's Uncle Manfred Neumann, East German refugee & Canadian immigrant)

On June 24, 1948, the first "war" of the Cold War began with the Berlin Blockade in which the Soviet government cut off all road, rail and water links through Communist East Germany into the city of West Berlin to protest their inclusion in the monetary reform program.  In a show of American might, the Berlin Airlift commenced with the former Allies dropping supplies to the citizens of the democratic "island" of West Berlin.  Here are some numbers to show the scope of the airlift.

-Berlin Airlift duration was 14 months
-2.34 million tons of food, coal, fuel and other supplies were dropped
-2.2 million citizens received these supplies
-277,000 flights delivered the supplies
-300 aircraft were used
-at the height of the airlift, take-offs and landings took place every 90 seconds at Tempelhof Airport
-78 lives were lost (31 Americans, 39 Britons, 8 Germans)

The last delivery took place on August 27, 1949.  West Berliners would be eternally grateful to the former Allies, particularly the United States, for their support, without which they would have starved to death.

Source:  DPA News Agency

http://arago.si.edu/category_2042662.html

Elie Wiesel's The Perils of Indifference

The opposite of love is not hate, but indifference. (Elie Wiesel)

Elie Wiesel was a Romanian Jew who survived imprisonment in Auschwitz and Buchenwald during the Second World War, documented in his book Night.  Like many imprisoned Jews, Elie assumed that the powers that be did not know about the Nazi death camps.  After all, if they did, they would do something to stop the mass killings.

However, Elie eventually discovered that the United States State Department knew about the Nazi death camps; the Pentagon knew, as did President Roosevelt.  In fact, in 1939, when the ship the S.S. St. Louis arrived on the shores of the United States filled with 1000 Jewish refugees requesting asylum, President Roosevelt said no (see http://alinefromlinda.blogspot.ca/2015/09/ss-st-louis-ship-of-jewish-refugees.html).

Why did the Americans (and Canadians in the case of the SS St. Louis) show such indifference to the Jewish condition.  Elie said that the opposite of love is not hate, but indifference.  Such an attitude is dangerous.  "In a way, to be indifferent to suffering is what makes the human being inhuman. Indifference, after all, is more dangerous than anger and hatred.  Anger can at times be creative.  One writes a great poem, a great symphony.  One does something special for the sake of humanity because one is angry at the injustice that one witnesses.  But indifference is never creative."

The Americans, and the rest of the Allies, finally acted when they invaded the Nazi occupied countries and started liberating the Nazi death camps.  There was no indifference in their eyes when they saw the skeletons piled high.  Elie remembers the soldiers rage at what they saw.  He remembers the gratitude that he felt upon his liberation.  Here is an excerpt from the speech he delivered to President Clinton and some dignitaries in Washington DC in 1999:

Fifty four years ago to the day, a young Jewish boy from a small town in the Carpathian Mountains woke up, not far from Goethes beloved Weimar, in a place of eternal infamy called Buchenwald.  He was finally free, but there was no joy in his heart.  He thought there never would be again.  Liberated a day earlier by American soldiers, he remembers their rage at what they saw.  And even if he lives to be a very old man, he will always be grateful to them for that rage, and also for their compassion. Though he did not understand their language, their eyes told him what he needed to know -- that they too would remember and bear witness.

Elie Wiesel and his family courtesy http://pamelagellercom.c.presscdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/wiesel-family.jpg.